Come Undone
by Fleirn
Summary: It was having that edge that helped her to where she was, and now, she's losing it and can't get it back. Cristina pov. [Oneshot]


Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy at all.

_A/N: I hope I didn't capture Cristina really really out of character, my apologies if I totally kill her character in this story. This is basically about her thoughts a bit after the interrogation room scene with the Chief. I borrowed some of it from her speech in that room which was awesome, because it was interesting how she reacted to her losing of her edge, as she calls it, and how desperately she wants it back. Hope you do enjoy reading (:_

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**COME UNDONE**

If Cristina Yang could pinpoint a time when she started cutting herself off from the world, it would probably have been the time when she was eight.

Tiffany had been her best friend, at least for that little while. And as eight-year-olds were often warranted to do, they did everything together. Living across the street from each other, they went to school together, carried the same school bags (it was pink and decorated with little images of Barbie, somehow Cristina had gotten it as a birthday gift and hated the bag while Tiffany took a shine to it, demanding she have the _exact same one_ her best friend had), had their own identically-packed lunches (mostly on part of their mothers). It seemed only natural that when Cristina started taking ballet lessons, her best friend wanted lessons as well. The former, of course, had been pleased enough when she was being told the news.

Then came the annual performance.

The performance was held by the school at the end of each year, showcasing their students and their prowess at pirouettes and leaps and twirls under the obscenely glaring spotlights of the school's auditorium with each grade performing their own routine. The students were taught the basic movements, and as part of choosing the main star for each routine, they were told to prepare their own one minute presentation of themselves.

Although she was one of the best students in her grade, Cristina did not take to ballet much. It was horse-riding she was more interested in, the feel of overcoming present obstacles. It was dangerous, interesting, very hard-core and it suited her just fine. Ballet, on the other hand… still, she was not one to pass up the chance to be the star of the show. If it meant creating a completely complicated routine to impress the teachers, so be it.

Of course, if there was someone who didn't know the difference between "conjoined twins" and "best friends", it would have been Tiffany. Then again, her mother seemed to have had a hand in the whole "both you girls should practice together, there's so much to learn and improve" routine.

However, it could just have been her fault. When Tiffany had shown Cristina her routine, the latter had to fight to push down that knowledge of her getting the part. That routine was so entirely easy, she could have nailed it perfectly with her eyes closed. She smiled at Tiffany when the girl finished, said it was all right but not really spectacular, and then confided her routine to the girl, who was listening wide-eyed and curious, and absorbing every single step.

When the results were posted, Tiffany had gotten the part, and Cristina was chastised for her "not original" routine which the teachers were sure she stole from "one of the girls". That day, when she went home, she emptied out the Barbie schoolbag and threw it out with the trash, along with her lunch box and the silly friendship band she had tied around her pencil case.

Tiffany barely got the hint, being so happy with her starring role, that she offered to change her schoolbag as well, until Cristina, being uncharacteristically blunt (that would later change) told her they were not exactly "best friends" anymore, or even friends for that matter, and that she better stay away and _have fun at the performance_.

When the teachers called her mother up to ask why one of their better pupils was transferring, Cristina got her mother to tell them that "her daughter didn't wish to risk stealing some unnamed girl's routine again". Her mother had been strangely co-operative on that.

It was not an completely conscious decision for her to go get an edge. Not that it was even possible. An edge was not purchasable on eBay or the bookshop down the road or even tangible. It was more of a sub-conscious effort to prevent herself from getting involved for the long-term, no guilt, no loyalties, and no problem. Even as an eight-year-old, she figured out as much.

And so, at eight-years-old, Cristina decided not-too-sadly shut herself off from affections and kept her emotions to herself, she made sure that nothing got to her. It was better, she decided, to come out tops when there was nothing to prevent her.

The edge lasted for the next nineteen years: through the equestrian competitions, through high school with the cliques and loyalties, through college, through University, through the grueling years of med school before it was severely threatened.

It was not even in a direct confrontation way that most things in her life were, instead it was more of a gradual loss of that edge that she came to love so much. She had thought it had been and will be a lasting shield around her, a protector of her emotions, a defender of her interests and a guard against obstacles.

She hadn't thought the job, rather, the _people_ at the job would get through the shield like they did.

She had met them at the mixer, eyed them and sized them up, said hello and had some not-too-friendly drinks with the competition, and came to the conclusion that she could easily to the best intern Seattle Grace had ever seen. Hell, she could be the next Ellis Grey.

After all, she had the skills, being top of her class and all, and she was the one with answers, always have been, always will be. Sure, she had zero people-management skills to speak of, and it would have been worrying had she chosen a job in the service industry. But as a doctor (a _surgeon_ dammit!), she highly doubted it was being greeted with a cheerful "hello!" and "how are you today!", unless it had been after their very successful surgery. People went to the hospital to be rid of their illnesses, if they had wanted some human interaction to heighten their happiness quotient, it was just a simple matter of picking up the phone and dialing some chatline.

Somehow, in the whole mental rationale thing, it did not even once occur to her that her four other fellow interns would affect her so much. There was still competition, there always had been, but now, it was as though they were family. One thing Cristina Yang failed to understand when she accepted the job was that enduring the 'torture' together as interns would make them bond better, because they were a freaking _team._

And then there was the matter of an attending by name of Preston Burke. She had sensed he was trouble from the start, heck, she even muttered it in the gallery. As much as they were proved that opposites do attract, it was only in appearance. Their personalities were one and the same, perhaps that was how he got to her in the first place. Both of them didn't like settling for second-best, or even _settling_ at all, it was always to be the best, and to stay that way. He got through as well, and it unnerved her.

Still, it was mostly the four of them: Meredith and Izzie and George and Alex. Because of them, she got into the whole 'loyalties' mess, the creation of their dysfunctional and totally unconventional family. She stayed in Denny's room when she knew she should have gotten out and not gotten involved. Cristina knew she would have before. Before she knew them, before she started this job, before, she would have gone to tell someone about the group of interns who screwed up a patient till he almost had a tag on his toe, she would have done what she could to make sure they deserved their punishment, she would have given Chief the answers without hesitation, without prompting. That was before.

If Cristina Yang could pinpoint a moment in time when she lost her edge unwillingly, it would have been that year of madness. She had started cultivating it since she was eight, she had done that to prevent herself from being affected, and yet, here she was, nearly twenty years later, looking around her and finding that the shield she had erected around herself was slowly dissolving bit by bit, day by day.

Some part of her was thankful for her being re-integrated into the world of human emotions, the other was apprehensive and afraid. Cristina knew she could still survive without that edge, the problem was, she didn't know _how._

END.

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Reviews will be love! Thanks!


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